This press release was also shared on Constellation Research’s website. You can read the original post here.

About This Constellation ShortList™

Benefits are becoming more of a strategic compensation asset for enterprises. In a tight talent market, the availability, depth and breadth of benefits can be key for employment decisions and important for keeping attrition low. The enrollment, however, remains a challenge for almost all employees, with their yearly enrollment decisions having deep repercussions affecting their own and their dependents’ lives for the next year or even years to come. At the same time, employee cost is on the rise and benefits are becoming a substantial part of the employee cost.

Ease of enrollment, especially from mobile platforms, is key, while allowing benefits admins to easily create the enrollment experience. Reflecting the global pandemic, vendors need to rethink the way how benefit funds are allocated and what the effectiveness of single benefit offerings is.

To be a benefits administration vendor, these companies need to provide regular innovation on the ease of enrollment. At the same time, they must support the benefits administrator and help turn the tables on the information war on healthcare/services providers. Moreover, they need to have out-of-the box interfaces with the leading HCM suites (see the Constellation ShortLists for Global HCM Suites and North American SMB Payroll) to help enterprises integrate and go live with ease. Listed companies must have 500+ customers in North America, and ideally support for more continents for global benefits. Key new capabilities added in 2020 are for benefits usage and dashboards.

Threshold Criteria

Constellation considers the following criteria for these solutions:

• Enrollment capability
• Mobile enrollment
• Continuous improvement of the enrollment experience
• Easy setup of enrollment mechanics by benefit admins
• At least five of the following areas:
  • Explanation capability of benefits decisions
  • Ability to simulate enrollment decision consequences
  • Low-code/no-code options to augment the enrollment experience
  • Interfaces to popular HCM suites
  • Enrollment reminders, progress and communications
  • Usage and consumption analytics
  • Benefit design input and capabilities
  • Compliance reporting
  • Analytics that reflect the post pandemic needed effectiveness of benefits offerings
  • Benefits usage and prediction of usage capabilities
  • Powerful dashboard to understand benefits usage and enrollment status
• Support for more than one continent
• Over 750 customers and more than 1.5 million benefits enrollment users
• Mobile enrollment version with at least 100,000+ users

The Constellation ShortList™

Constellation evaluates more than 20 solutions categorized in this market. The Constellation ShortList is determined by client inquiries, partner conversations, customer references, vendor selection projects, market share and internal research.

• Benefitfocus
• Businessolver
• Castlight Health
• Morneau Shepell
• PlanSource
• Thomsons Online Benefits, a Mercer company
• WageWorks

Frequency of Evaluation

Each Constellation ShortList will be updated at least once per year. There could be an update after six months, should the analyst deem it necessary.

Evaluation Services

Constellation clients may work with the analyst and research team to conduct a more thorough discussion of this ShortList. Constellation can also provide guidance in vendor selection and contract negotiation.